Scientists at the United States National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) have turned their attention from the mysteries of
the cosmos to a more esoteric area of research: what happens when you get
a spider stoned.

Their
experiments have shown that common house spiders spin their webs in
different ways according to the psychotropic drug they have been given.
Spiders on marijuana made a reasonable stab at spinning webs but appeared
to lose concentration about half-way through. Those on Benzedrine -
"speed" - spin their webs "with great gusto, but apparently without much
planning leaving large holes", according to New Scientist magazine.

Caffeine, one of the most common drugs consumed by Britons in soft
drinks, tea and coffee, makes spiders incapable of spinning anything
better than a few threads strung together at random. On chloral hydrat, an
ingredient of sleeping pills, spiders "drop off before they even get
started".

Nasa scientists believe the research demonstrates that web-spinning
spiders can be used to test drugs because the more toxic the chemical, the
more deformed was the web.

The scientists believe their previous work on the goemetry of crystals
will help them to devise computer programs that can analyse web-building
objectively in order to predict the toxicity of new medicines. "It appears
that one of the most telling measures of toxicity is a decrease, in
comparison with a normal web, of the numbers of completed sides [of a
web]; the greater the toxicity, the more sides the spider fails to
complete", the scientists say.

Paul Hillard, spider specialist at the Natural History Museum in
London, said researchers first discovered the effects of psychotropic
drugs on spiders during experiments at the end of 1960s. The researchers
fed caffeine to spiders in hope of making them spin webs in the late
evening rather than the early dawn. The result was eccentric webs rather
than earlier spinning, he said.

Article and research by Steve Connor

The normal web of a spider.

Web created while exposed to
Mescaline/Peyote.

Web created exposed to LSD.

Web created while exposed to
Marijuana.

Web created exposed to
Caffeine.

Web created exposed to Benzedrine/Speed.

Web created exposed to Chloral Hydrat. An
ingredient found in sleeping
pills.